MLS released its 2014 regular season Monday. That's six weeks before it was
released the previous two years.

If a league's ability to get its schedule in order is an indication of its maturity, MLS has made lots of progress. If was only three years ago that the
schedule wasn't released until February, the consequence of protracted television negotiations between MLS and Fox.

Here are a few other takeaways from 2014 MLS schedule release:

MLS will begin a week later than it did in 2013, but the start of the season will again be very hectic.

The Wednesday before the March 8
openers is the lone FIFA fixture date before teams will assemble for World Cup preparations in May.

Three teams -- the LA Galaxy, San Jose Earthquakes and Sporting Kansas City -- will
have midweek games in the Concacaf Champions League quarterfinals between the first and second and second and third weeks of the season. The Quakes are off the second weekend, but the Galaxy and
Sporting KC have MLS games. (Curiously, two other MLS teams are off -- Real Salt Lake and Columbus -- in the eight-game Week 2 weekend.)

MLS will take two
weeks off during the World Cup as it did in 2010 but MLS players on World Cup teams will be unavailable for four weeks, longer if their team makes it to the quarterfinals.

MLS had four players on the 2010 U.S. World Cup team, but as many as eight or nine players could be on the 2014 U.S. team. A half dozen other players could be on
Costa Rica and Honduras, which will also be in the World Cup.

Players will likely report for World Cup duty after the games on May 17-18 -- the final day of the European club season --
but there will be three more weekends of MLS play before it breaks. MLS weekend play resumes June 27-29, only a day after the end of group play and the same weekend as the round of 16 at the World
Cup, so MLS players will likely be unavailable that weekend, whether or not they're playing in the knockout phase.

MLS will start a week later than in
2013 and take two weeks off for the World Cup by only adding six midweek games.

It played through the four FIFA fixture dates during the 2013 regular season because of World Cup
qualifying -- double dates in March, September and October and the triple date in June -- but it didn't play full slate of games -- nine games -- every time.

2014: Midweek games (40)36 Wednesday3 Thursday1 Tuesday

2013: Midweek games (34)30 Wednesday4 *Thursday *3 July 4 games.

NBCSN will air a game every Friday night beginning on June 27 and continuing through the end of the
regular season.

The action begins with Portland-Sporting KC the first Friday back after the World Cup break. NBCSN carried games on some but not all Friday nights late in the 2013
regular season, and the viewership figures were some of the best of the year.

ESPN will carry 20 games on ESPN and ESPN2, NBC Sports Group will air
38 games in total on NBCSN and three on NBC, while Univision will carry 28 games on UniMas or Univision Deportes Network.

National coverage will begin opening day with the Seattle
Sounders hosting Sporting Kansas City on NBCSN. It will be one 13 Sounders' games on English-language national TV.

All the same issues will apply in 2014: The regular season ends Oct. 26, and MLS will have six weekends to get in
six dates if it wants to end no later than Dec. 7 but will face conflicts on two weekends -- FIFA fixture weekend on Nov. 15-16 and Thanksgiving weekend on Nov. 29-30.

(Finishing the
weekend of Dec. 14 puts MLS in conflict with the 2014 Club World Cup in Morocco. MLS has never faced the problem before, but it would be a good problem to have: It won't be able to go past Dec. 7 if
one of its teams wins the Concacaf Champions League.)

Just one call-up to a key player (Robbie Keane?) could throw a monkey wrench into the easiest
solution: play through to the Nov. 15-16 weekend.

The alternative would be to eliminate the play-in game (added in 2011) or second leg of the conference final (added in 2012) or return
MLS Cup to a neutral site (not likely after the atmosphere everyone will witness in two weeks in Kansas City).

But that still leaves the issue of the second two-week break, instituted in
2012 when MLS moved MLS Cup to the highest remaining seed. The two-week break was added to give everyone an extra week to prepare for and get to the final, but it also avoids playing on Thanksgiving
weekend.

There appears to be no easy solution to the start-and-stop MLS playoff schedule -- four dates in 12 days, followed by two dates in four weeks -- absent switching to a fall-spring
season when the absence of FIFA fixture dates in April and May would give MLS clear sailing to play through the final weeks of its season without conflict.

Time to bite the bullet and start planning for a Sept to June schedule like rest of the world, with a long winter break centered on New Years. And just accept that northern clubs will all play away games at southern cities in Nov-Feb. You can play soccer in the rain, but matches played 100deg temp in July and Aug, with 90% humidity in some southern cities, are just a joke.

No Sept. - June schedule. It is stupid. Screw Europe. We dopn't have to do everything they do. Besides soccer is a summer sport. They, Europe, is stupid for playing games in the snow! If soccer was winter sport they would hold it in the Winter Olympics and play the World Cup in Jan. Think about it!!!Summer in Europe is ideal for soccer, not winter. Conditions, and play is better, and more comfortable for the fans. Besides in Scandanavian and Russian leagues it is still a summer sport! Stodgy Europe needs to change, not US.

Checking In! Did you guys hear about the "square ball" the MLS is introducing to the world? Come on Dan!!! But it wouldn't surprise me. Happy Holidays from Athens, Greece guys...and yes, it's freezing!

Dan:
Soccer is mainly a fall-spring sport because the Brits were playing cricket in the summer, and they exported the game to the world. It's an accident of history although some English gentlemen that I know seem to feel it was an act of God,,,lol. In the USA, playing in the winter would either have to have all the games played in the warm climates or a winter break that would be unreasonably long. Plus it would be competing with American football, Basketball and Hockey. The present system competes mainly just with baseball. Just my 2 cents worth.